I. 5
THE EXPLANATORY LEGENDS
AND THE SCRIPTORIAL HOME OF
THE PLAN
I.5.1
DISTINCTION BETWEEN GENERAL
AND SPECIFIC TITLES
Apart from the transmittal note discussed above, the
explanatory legends of the Plan consist of 340 titles of
varying length which describe the purpose of each building,
the function of the individual rooms, as well as the equipment
and furnishings therein. The general purpose of each
building, as a rule, is described in a verse (hexameter or
distich), written parallel to and at a small distance from the
entrance wall of the house to which it pertains. The titles
that define the internal functions of each building are
written in prose.[87]
They are always inscribed in the center
of the area they describe or as close to the center of that
area as conditions permit. Exceptions to this are made in
only a few cases, where the object is too small to accommodate
its title, such as the cupboards (toregmata) in the
dining hall of the House for Distinguished Guests (fig.
396),[88]
the abbot's living room (fig. 251),[89]
and the Monks'
Refectory (fig. 211).[90]
I.5.2
TWO HANDS REPRESENTING TWO
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT IN THE
SCRIPTORIUM OF REICHENAU
A careful paleographical analysis by Bernhard Bischoff
of the textual annotations of the Plan established the
monastery of Reichenau as the scriptorial home of the
Plan.[91]
Bischoff distinguishes two hands, working in close
co-operation but representing two different developmental
stages of writing within the scriptorium of the abbey of
Reichenau: that of a younger man, the "main scribe,"
who is responsible for 265 of the 340 entries, and that of an
older man, the "second scribe," who wrote the remainder.
The main scribe rendered his legends in a deep-brown
ink almost bordering on black. He wrote in a small, crisp,
and finely articulated Carolingian minuscule, making use
of relatively closely spaced and nearly perpendicular
letters with long ascenders.[92]
This scribe is also responsible
for the letter of transmittal on the upper margin of the Plan
(fig. 2) and for ten legends written in capitalis rustica.[93]
The second scribe rendered his legends in a pale-brown
ink. He wrote a minuscule of more rigid perpendicularity,
spacing his letters a little farther apart and using shorter
ascenders. The entries of this scribe are confined to the
designations of the trees and plants in the two monastic
gardens (figs. 414 and 426),[94]
the names of the trees in the
Cemetery (fig. 430),[95]
the titles of the ten altars in the aisles
of the Church (fig. 93),[96]
the titles for the altars in the
Church towers;[97]
as well as some lines which look like
additions, such as the supra camera et solarium in the
Abbot's House (fig. 251),[98]
the infra supra tabulatum in the
House for Horses and Oxen (fig. 3),[99]
and the first three
lines of the verse that identifies the function of the Porch
connecting the western paradise of the Church with the
grounds of the House for Distinguished Guests (fig. 4).[100]
Bischoff was able to identify the hand of the main scribe
as that of a monk who, at an earlier stage of his career,
wrote a Vita sancti Bonifatii on fols. 2v-19 (fig. 5) of a
hagiographical ms. (Karlsruhe, Codex Augiensis CXXXVI)
written in the monastery of Reichenau under the direction
of its erudite librarian, Reginbert. His script suggests that
he is a younger man, whose style of writing has been
influenced by a temporary sojourn in Fulda.[101]
The script of the second scribe is that of an older man,
and its basic paleographical features are so similar to those
of Reginbert himself—the last among the classical Carolingian
writers to use this type of script (he died in 846)—that
Bischoff feels it might well be the product of Reginbert's
own hand.[102]
From the nature of his textual entries, which
have the appearance of what Bischoff calls "katalogartige
Nachträge," Bischoff infers that the second hand acted in
a supervisory capacity, filling in and completing where the
knowledge of the main scribe ended. Contrary to this
general relationship, however, there is one entry—the
legend that defines the function of the Porch connecting
the western paradise of the Church with the grounds of the
House for Distinguished Guests—in which the first three
lines are written in the ductus and pale-brown ink of the
"supervising" hand (the hexameter, Exi & hic hospes uel
templi tecta subibit), whereas the three lines that complete
this verse are written in the style and dark-brown ink of
the main hand (the pentameter, Discentis scolae pulchra
iuuenta simul). The co-operation between the main scribe
and the supervising scribe, Bischoff infers from this, must
have been extremely close.
I.5.3
CONCEPT OF AUTHORSHIP & HAITO
To what extent do Bischoff's findings on the paleographical
nature of the explanatory titles of the Plan confirm
or contradict our theory of Haito's authorship?
They make one point quite clear: Haito cannot have been
identical with the scribe who wrote the letter of transmittal
and the majority of the other titles of the Plan. At the time
the Plan was made, Haito was not a young man. He was
already around fifty-eight years of age in 820.[103]
These
findings, however, do not in my opinion disqualify Haito
from the authorship of the Plan. The concept of authorship
in the Middle Ages is complex. Bischoff himself furnishes
us with an excellent case in point. The above-mentioned
Codex Augiensis CXXXVI contains on folio IV an annotation
in which Reginbert of Reichenau refers to himself in
unequivocal terms as the "fabricator" of the book, "Hunc
libellum . . . meo studio confeci." Yet besides this entry on
folio IV, some chapter headings on folios 21r, 24r, and 28r,
and some isolated corrections here and there, no other line
of this work is written in his own hand.[104]
It is not necessary, with this concept of authorship, to
expect that the person who in the transmittal note of the
Plan defines himself as its maker should actually have
traced the Plan or written its explanatory titles. He is the
person who directed that the Plan be made, and who—
once it was made—transmitted it to the person by whom
it had been requested.
Bischoff has established that the explanatory titles of the
Plan were written in the monastery of Reichenau, perhaps
under the supervision of Reginbert, with the assistance of
a scribe who had co-operated with Reginbert in other
literary endeavors. Reginbert is not a likely candidate for
the authorship of the Plan for reasons that I have stated in
the preceding chapter. This leaves, once more, as the only
logical choice, Bishop Haito of Basel who, as the superior
of the two, might very well have availed himself of their
joint support in making the Plan.
As one of the leading bishops and abbots in the empire,
Haito is furthermore a person who can be expected to have
had access to the prototype plan.
